Imagine a scenario where a restaurant chain, famous for chicken dishes, is forced to shut down dozens of its outlets due to supply shortage. Food shops too are trimming their menus and superstores leaving some of their shelves partly empty because they are unable to replenish their depleted stocks. But, it’s real, and it's happening in Britain.   These breakdowns in supply chains are not only affecting small or medium size business entities, but big brand multinationals too. Nando’s has run out of chicken, Macdonald’s has stopped selling milkshakes, superstores have been struggling with dairy products. The latest global giant joining the list of struggling with supply chain crisis is Coca-Cola, which has reported shortage of aluminium cans. Coca-Cola’s trouble is reported to have spread beyond the UK and affecting bottling plants in Europe. The reason behind the crisis is shortage of truckers known as HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) drivers. It doesn't matter whether someone ...

A columnist-turned-politician who has never fallen short of words and expressions, in both writing and speaking, suddenly gave up his attempts to provide an appropriate response to the grim statistics of over 100,000 Covid-19 deaths in Britain. On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson ended up saying, "You'd exhaust the thesaurus of misery. It's an appalling and tragic loss of life." He, however, claimed his government did everything it could to minimise deaths. And the reaction to his claim has been fierce. Scientists, opposition politicians and victims' families say a series of "poor decisions" made before and during the pandemic led to one of the worst death rates in the world. It is worth noting that though this official figure already is the highest in Europe, there is another set of accounting—also compiled by a government agency, the Office for National Statistics (ONS)—that shows an even higher body count, by at least 20 percent.  It is d...